Page 1354 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
safe, particularly for some of our older citizens, who find areas where there are cracks and uneven surfaces to be somewhat dangerous.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Jones.
MRS JONES: Given the focus, minister, on active transport, what is being done about places where the cycle path ends and cyclists have to get up onto the footpath or join a cycle path that is off-road and there is no ramp in between the two?
MR RATTENBURY: I think one of the great frustrations for cyclists is some of the disconnects in the network. They do exist. As the government has gone about its policy, when a road is resealed or upgraded, of installing a cycle lane, at times gaps have emerged. It is something that I find very frustrating myself as a cyclist. Sometimes you are left a bit uncertain as to where to go. That is why we continue to upgrade those areas within the budget and as part of the parliamentary agreement both last term and this term. We have seen that commitment to funding cycling infrastructure and the upgrade of it.
I would encourage anybody who does have a specific site that they have identified as problematic to be in touch either with myself directly or through Fix My Street on Canberra Connect. That is how we find out where some of the problem areas are. Some of them can be quite readily fixed. It can be a matter of changing some line marking. Certainly, on Monday this week I went out with the engineers who have worked on the Civic cycle loop to look at a couple of sites where we need to do some further work. They will be able to be fixed quite quickly. So it is just a little bit of user feedback, and I would encourage any of your constituents to be in touch with the government. As I say, some of them can be fixed quite quickly; others take a bit longer. But if we do not know about them, we cannot get on to fixing them.
ACTEW Corporation Ltd—Murrumbidgee augmentation project
MRS JONES: My question is to the Chief Minister as a shareholder in ACTEW. I refer to the statement by the senior commissioner of the ICRC that ACTEW was imprudent in its expenditure of $50 million on the Murrumbidgee augmentation project. What due diligence did ACTEW do before it made this expenditure? What actions did the shareholders take to examine the prudence of the expenditure?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank Mrs Jones for the question. I think all of the issues that have been raised by the ICRC through their draft determination are being considered by the government—
Mr Hanson: You think they are.
MS GALLAGHER: I said “are being considered by the government”—in terms of providing our response to the draft determination. The government has worked very closely with ACTEW around securing the ACT’s water supply for the future, indeed for the next 20 to 30 years. Those individual projects have been examined in very close detail about whether they are prudent and efficient and whether they are the right thing to do. The government has taken decisions around that. That has all been
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video